The Last Human
by TheInkgirl
Summary: The Capitol has crumbled, humanity is dying, and one human watches it happen.


The Last Human

It was several weeks after the capitol was destroyed when their village was bombed. This extra time was not a respite—simply extra anxiety. They were rats in a trap, after all. There was nowhere they could go that they would not be found. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run, no one to call to.

Everyone had crowded around their radios on the night that the capitol was destroyed—they heard it and heard their own doom. It really was the end now. Children buried their faces in their mothers' worn clothes. Men clenched their teeth and hands, white, knowing there was no longer any way to save their loved ones.

One the day that it happened—Marley was out. She often went, walking far and hard, stealing things to sell illegally since the State barely left enough to get by on, scrounging around at the sights of old factories for anything useful. She had heard, she knew, deep in her mind, that it was only a matter of days until they died. But like most of the young, she didn't really believe it—something in her young soul not accepting defeat—not yet. Not if there was the slightest possibility. The slightest ray of hope.

But her hope died that day.

Marley was young, 17 years, with long brown hair that lay, mussed, down her back, and muddy eyes that flashed green out of her soot-streaked face. Her clothes, patched together from odd garments were filthy, and the skin on her hands cracked as she dug around in a junk pile, park of the remains of one of the old factories.

Her fingers brushed against something smooth; she squinted and dug deeper, finally pulling out a tiny wheel—something probably once used to make the conveyor belts move. She grinned. Her younger sister, Elise loved wheels. Marley collected them—among other odds and ends—and Elise made things with them. Elise was the creative one. She could probably make something useful out of a toenail, her sister thought, laughing.

Most people would have said, "make something useful out of a Swaste," instead of a toenail. Marley grimaced. That joke was older than dirt: "What'll you take in payment Haynt?" "Ah, we're all in bad shape. Darned—I'd take _anything._ Well, anything but a Swaste." And both tired, hungry workers would laugh. The Swaste—the symbol of The State. The State that controlled everything, and took everything, even the rights to speak and think what you would.

Marley hated the state with a passion, as did every self-respecting outlander, scrounging for a living while the State kept everyone subjugated, and kept itself in power.

She pocketed the wheel, along with the other odds and ends she'd found that way and squinted through the broken window at a sepia-tinted sky. There appeared to be clouds on the horizon—maybe a late storm blowing in.

She stood atop the rubble and shouldered her bag. Time to get a move on.

As she crawled through one of the enormous broken windows and began jogging across a waste—one of the many barren, lifeless, fields that stretched immense around the old factories, not use for anything now.

As Marley jogged, her feet aching, and her bag banging against her back with every step, she shaded her face with her eyes and glanced at the storm clouds. She slowed a moment. It was moving fast for a storm. Where was the wind that was driving it? She didn't feel it. Nor did she feel the oppressive before-the-storm type stillness. Just the never-ending breeze that always blew here.

She squinted hard into the clouds. Something was moving within it. Something…things…long and… Bits and pieces flashed vaguely out of the cloud. Marley's stomach clenched, though she wasn't sure why. But she was sure of one thing—the only thing that would reflect like that was metal. And metal was the enemy.

An overpowering dread settled over Marley as she saw the storm advancing. And realized it was not a natural storm. It was unnatural. It was machines—machines and dust and death marching towards her, and towards their settlement.

She had no idea what she could do. But maybe she could beat it—warn everyone. They could run. She began sprinting, chest heaving as she strove to outdistance the mechanical army. They could all run—there would be time. Machines didn't really have brains did they? How would they be able to tell if the houses were empty or full of the innocent?

She ran, ran, every step jarring her. The machines were making better time that she was—and their unnatural dirt-filled wind began blowing. She squinted and kept her eyes on the homes. Her home. Running.

She didn't know how long it took. For some reason—the run across the Bareness seemed to last hours longer than it could have. She saw through a haze, her hearing seemed gone, she saw the machines advancing. And then she knew, she knew she couldn't outrun them. Despair welled up in her but she pushed it down.

No! her foot hit the ground, No! came the next step. No No No.

At least she must make it. So that, when she died, she would die by her family. She could see them in her mind's eye. Her mother, pale and tired, seeing the machines, hurrying everyone to the room furthest away from the windows, holding a frightened Elise close to her, her father lunging for his sawed-off shotgun, illegal in the holdings. She must reach them. She must.

The machines advanced, enormous and frightening and looming to her outland eyes, bright and hard and cold, their legs longer than two houses were high, faceless, flawless, soulless. She could see them now, the people of her village, running in confusion and terror, some dropping to their knees and praying—for who in the capitol could see and punish that now? (But what good was that? Who would hear?) She could see faces screaming, but couldn't hear it over the sound of the machines.

Then all at once, the legion of monsterous giants stopped at once, an aperture raised from their tops. She found herself screaming. She was still too far away. Then they fired. All at once and so deafening she couldn't think, couldn't see. She screamed, anger and fear and resentment all swallowed up in the overpowering sound of destruction. Too late. Mounds of rock and debris fell, fell atop her. It was over. It really was over. Her last thought was one of pure hate. And then she remembered no more.

_Originally this was going to be the start of a much longer fic. As things stand, I might or might not write the rest. If so, this would be the prologue. If not, this is just a one-shot, set in the 9 world, as a human sees the end of her world. I had wanted to do something a little different than most 9 fics, which generally seem to revolve around a stitchpunk OC thrown in as a romantic interest for some cannon character or other. Reviews are love, so you get a banana if you review._

_9© Shane Acker_

_Story© TheInkgirl_


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